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Just like the posts I’m going to pop up for Primaris, I also intend to look at Death Guard in the same way. I’m going to stick with the Death Guard Codex – no plague bearers or the like, so there’s a fairly big chunk of optimisation that’s going to be missed out.

Still, we’re going to go step by step through the mechanics and possibly shenanigans to get the absolutely maximum bang for your Mortarion based geneseed buck.

We’ll be looking at detachments and ways to max out command points, ways of using stratagems and psychic powers, which units seem to be the best value on the battlefield, and so on.

I think what’s important, though, is we’ll discuss the best options for different play styles and how to maximise the army for you, not just for theory hammer. If you play an aggressive close assault game, building an army based round long range firepower will feel frustrating and ineffective, regardless of what the statistics say. Lets look at how to have fun with it.

OK! I am feeling revitalised for some hobby. One thing a recent gaming weekend taught me, though, is that you can’t just fill slots in a detachment and stick them on the tabletop anymore. You need to seriously think about how units work together, how abilities augment each other, how strategems can max out unit effectiveness, and how psychic powers can double down on all the above.

I’m going to document my thoughts, notes and experiences in building an army (based largely on the Warhammer Conquest minis with some augmentation). Over time, we’re going to go through the process of looking at what units should do on the battlefield, how we can make them most effective at it, and how we can achieve the result for the best point cost.

There are some restrictions, just to make life harder for myself. In this series, I’m going to be looking at a pure Primaris army – I won’t be looking at taking any cheeky older Astartes, or Imperial allies (though I may highlight when I think that’d be most effective).

I’m not a very competitive gamer by nature, so I’d love to hear any corrections, options of missed or additional thoughts!

If you’ve found this page, you may have come across the term #parentplayers on twitter, and want to know a little more!

What is #ParentPlayers?

Parent Players is an event every few months at Warhammer World, where parents who love war-games can book in a date with a significant other well in advance, get some time cleared in the calendar, and head off to Nottingham for some relaxed gaming with a group of fellow parents who understand why you look so tired, get why the game has to go on hold for ten mins when a significant other calls with an update on the little ones, and generally just enjoy hanging out, maybe sneaking in a few beers and burgers in the bar, and trying not to spend too much money in Forgeworld.

What will we be playing?

The main game played is 40K, though lots of Shadespire and Bloodbowl goes on in Bugman’s Bar, and if you end up in the same hotel as a fellow attendee, expect silly light games and drinks in the hotel bar! It’s not an official event, though obviously as it takes place at Warhammer World you will need GW manufactured forces. If you want to try a game of something, though, there are plenty of people who can help you try – I played Shadespire at #ParentPlayers 2 thanks to @grimdarkness04 on twitter, and now am something of a convert…. though I do want a elf warband! Most of us have spare blood bowl teams and the like, so don’t stress too much about the models if you’d like to come along.

This time, we’re also expecting to be playing a fair bit of Kill Team to maximise limited space on the Saturday, and also to be able to try out a bigger range of minis and opponents.

When and where is it held?

Currently, #ParentPlayers 3 is planned for October 19/20th at Warhammer World – All day Friday, stay over in a Hotel, then all day Saturday.

You are more than welcome to come along for one or both days – if you can’t make Friday, do join us for 40k, Bloodbowl and Shadespire on the Saturday.

There is a nearby Holiday Inn that several of us have stayed in and really enjoyed over the first two incarnations of the event, and they were really tolerant of the silly gaming in the bar, and happily kept us in beer. We’ve confirmed tables now, so if you are coming, you can start looking for bargains.

Don’t feel you have to stay in the hotel if you want to find a cheaper option or live locally. We tend to play up until 9 or 10 at WHW! But if you are there, silly games and maybe a few more drinks will go down until the wee hours.

There may be some cheaper options with AirBnB but nothing’s been finalised on that front yet.

What are the costs?

Well, there are no direct costs for Parent Players! We’re a group of parents who love GW gaming, don’t get time to play much, so schedule in a meet up every few months. It can get a bit expensive though!

First, we all meet up at Warhammer World in Nottingham, so you may incur travel costs to get there. If you don’t live locally, you’ll need somewhere to stay, which probably means a hotel room – the holiday inn we tend to use is around £65 for the Friday night.

Next, food! Bugmans is a fantastic bar and does cracking food, but it’s easy to clock up £10-15 a meal, and drinks do tend to clock up, if only soft drinks for refreshment. If you do enjoy a few beers and silly games, that can carry on until the wee hours of the morning.

Finally, it’s Warhammer World. If it’s your first trip, you’ll probably want to pay for the exhibition hall, and almost everyone gets a Forgeworld or unusual model from the massive GW and FW stores. If you want something specific from Forgeworld, I’d suggest ordering online and going for store pickup to make sure you don’t miss out on the day.

It’s possible to do the event quite cheaply, especially if you just come down on one day and don’t incur accommodation and all the food costs. But it is a cracking two days!

Bonus extra – sometimes odd themes come up in the twitter chat to inspire people to do special models or unique gifts for the attendees. Please don’t feel obligated to do anything – if you want to paint up Tom Bombadil in a redox top for @thefirstautarch, feel free, but you don’t have to. Lots of silly ideas do float around in the twitter chat group.

Who will be there?

Well, there are several regular attendees you can approach on Twitter if you are interested in attending –

The whole event was actually the brainchild of the absolute top man, @wilsongrahams – thanks to the vagaries of life as a parent, ironically he hasn’t been able to go as yet, though we’ve got fingers crossed he’ll make it this time.

Reserved tables

On Friday 19th, we have the J’Migan Bridge 6×12 table for multiple small games, or combined megagames of 40k, the Ruins of Aphelion III for 40k (which is the scenery from the photography studio, so some cracking pics!), and… yes, we have the Death of Imperus Terrum warlord table too. As a bonus, we have a 3×3 Sector Mechanicus Necromunda table to sneak in a little kill team.

On Saturday 20th, we have the Tau Research Station 6×12 table for multiple small games or combined megagames of 40k, the Death of Imperius Terrum again, and the 3×3 Zone Mortals Necromunda table for some kill team too.

T-Shirts

I get my own event t-shirts made up at streetshirts.co.uk – I try to colour code a t-shirt and logo around my chosen army or blood bowl team, put my preferred name, twitter handle and #parentplayers on the front, with a big #parentplayers and an appropriate slogan on the back. Feel free to make your own – its by no means compulsory, but makes it a lot easier to spot you if its your first time!

Other Notes

This page will be fairly regularly updated with an idea of the attendees, tables and other details as the time gets nearer, but say hi to any of us on twitter – we have a discussion group that is pretty crazy where we chat about the forces we might bring, alternative games to play and just staying in touch!

We’re parents – lets get playing, even if its only a few times a year!

One thing that often comes up when painting models is the inevitably tricky bit – eyes. Honestly, eyes are a real pain to paint well, take ages, and really aren’t too important to a 28mm model viewed from 3 feet away. If you are painting for a competition, you need to do it well. Painting for the battlefield? You’ll make the model look worse a lot of the time. Here, in increasing order of difficulty, are a list of techniques to simulate eyes with greater or lesser effect.

Use a flesh or sepia wash over the face, which will darken the eye hollows anyway. This is often part of standard painting, and honestly, looks pretty good.

Go a step up from just the wash, and paint a dark colour like a brown on the eye before the wash. This will add definition, make the model look a little less sleepy, but still be easy, quick and effective. Gary Chalk recommends this level for tabletop figures, for example.

Go another step up, and paint a light colour over the brown. DO NOT PAINT WHITE. Its a really common mistake, but white actually looks terrible for eyes. A cream or light grey is far more effective.

Get cocky, and dot the eye. Its surprisingly difficult, but you can cheat quite well – use a technical pen to dot the eye instead of a brush!

This is where we start getting tricky. At this level – instead of painting the whole eye in a lighter colour, paint in white at each edge of the eye over the brown, and leave the brown in the centre. Its much easier to centre the eyes better this way than dotting them, and easier to tidy up.

We’re getting way out of Lazy Mini Painter territory here, so you should be looking at dedicated guides from this point up! Essentially we start adding more detail – a little touch of white on the pupil, just off to one side matching the same point as the imaginary light source for all your highlights now makes the eye look much more vibrant and convincing.

Hopefully these suggestions help you start getting models done quickly and effectively! Unfortunately, no matter how many lazy tips you adopt, practice still saves you the most time in the long run!

Well, the first post on my army for the Parent Players meet up in April! Its not very exciting, as it mostly covers initial research on colour choices and army contents instead of finished models or funky new techniques in progress.

At the moment, the plan is:

Undercoat with Chaos Black spray.

Basecoat with a dark red for insignia, gun metal (or leadbelcher) for all weapons, armour, pipes, bone for all odd bits like horns, tusks, skulls, Grey for robes, Stirling Battlemire on bases.

Agrax the robes, nuln oil everything else except swords and visors, which will use gem paint blue for power swords, gem paint red for daemon weapons, and gem paint green for force swords and psychic fire.

add some flock to the bases.

In terms of the units, I’m currently looking at using the Codex Astartes for the Fallen, as they are proper marines not like the Chaos Marines in the Dark Angels:Terminator Lord/Captain, with power sword/murder sword and combimelta.2 Sorcerers/Librarian with force sword and bolt pistolTerminator Squad with power fists, one heavy flamer, and sarge with power sword.Terminator Squad with powerfists, 1 chain fist, one assault cannon, sarge with power sword.2 5 man units of SM/CSM with sergeant with power fist and plasma pistol, 3 bolters, 1 plasma gun1 5 man unit of SM/CSM with sergeant with chainsword and plasma pistol, 3 bolters, 1 plasma gun1 command squad/chosen unit1 5 man Raptors/Assault Squad with sarge with lightning claws, 3 bolt pistols and chainswords, 1 flamer1 5 man unit of havocs/devastators with heavy bolters1 5 man unit of havocs/devastators with las cannons and missile launchers1 Helbrute1 Chaos Dreadnought with plasma cannon and power scourge – The Angel of BladesI haven’t got much in the way of vehicles sorted out, though I think I’ll have to add some rhinos and maybe a land raider in black. I

‘ll magnetise the icons and use them with Deathwatch too.

I might also look at adding cypher as an inquisitor, and a deathwatch kill team all with DA plates just for fun.

I have many hobby resolutions for this grand new year, many of which may fall by the wayside! I’d rather have ambitious targets and get halfway than just potter along though!

First of all, I’m going to take part in multiple hobby challenges through the year, particularly #hobby500, aiming to finish 500 models this year, or approximately 10 a week, and the #painthammer2018 challenge (which is a smaller 365 models but has a few other goals and a really nice painting log involved). Will I hit them? With 2 small kids and recently moving house, probably not. But I’ll give it a damn good try and get properly back into the hobby game!

Second, my hobby purchases are going under review. I want to finish more of what I have, and I want to focus slightly more of my hobby fund on smaller miniature manufacturers. Games Workshop is fantastic, and honestly I’ll still buy a chunk of their new releases, but regular small purchases to support independent mini makers like Hasslefree Miniatures, Heresy Minis, Bad Squid Games and the like can make all the difference to them keeping their doors open, and I’d hate to see those fantastic models vanish forever.

Third, I’m going to attend the #parentplayers event towards the end of April, meeting up at Warhammer World with a Fallen Angels army completely painted just for the event. Its going to be awesome, and a great focus for getting a reasonable chunk of minis knocked out.

Fourth, I want to get some regular games on the go, with my brother and maybe attending some events or a Sheffield gaming club. it’d rock!

Fifth, I want to keep this blog more active, with painting guides, techniques and the like. Its great for my reference and a lot easier than working out what paints i used in 2 years time!